Bright & Dark
by punkrocker
Summary: Kay thinks she's going crazy. Can her friends help her before it's too late?
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
Dedicated to Sophia.  
  
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily's characters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.  
  
"Just make yourself comfortable and keep talking," Simone said to Kay. "Say anything that comes to your head."  
  
But saying that to Kay Bennett was like asking the ocean, as a favor, to turn cold in February.  
  
For Kay couldn't help saying anything that came into her head. On her good days, Kay was as bright and natural as her friends; on her dark days, she was depressed, withdrawn and deep in conversation with her "English voices."  
  
Kay Bennett, sixteen, was losing her mind.  
  
Simone Russell, the first of Kay's friends to realize Kay's dangerous state of mind, is also the first to understand that Kay's only hope of help must come from her friends. Simone persuades Theresa Fitzgerald and Charity Standish that "group therapy" is the answer--providing Kay with a way of letting off some of the terrific inward pressure, postponing the inevitable explosion.  
  
But Kay doesn't make their work easy. She's alternately sensible and violent, open and decietful, clear-headed and confused.  
  
  
Kay's story is as current as the last time you looked at your wrist watch. Kay and her friends are completely real, caring about real things: civil rights, sex, Freddy Prinz, Jr., riots, diet Jello, Ricky Martin and their futures.  
  
Funny as young people are, concerned in the same way, determined but a little at sea, Kay's "doctors" set out on a path of aid and comfort that will cause readers to reflect seiously, smile in recognition and sympathize totally with Kay and her illness.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1  
  
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily's characters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.  
  
_ "Daddy, I think I'm going crazy."  
  
Simone looked up astonished.  
  
"Oh?" Mrs. Bennett said. "Why is that?"  
  
"I can't tell you," Kay said. "I just think it's true. And I'm frightened."  
  
"More, Jessica?" Mrs. Bennett asked.  
  
"No, thanks," Kay's sister answered.  
  
"Kay?" her mother asked.  
  
"No. Listen, didn't anyone hear what I just said?"  
  
"We heard you, dear," Mrs. Bennett replied.  
  
"What is it you're crazy about?" Kay's father asked.  
  
"Damn it, Daddy! That's not it at all." Kay took a big breath, as though she were fighting something down.  
  
"What is it then?"  
  
"That is it. I don't know. I only have a feeling that something is awfully wrong. Inside my head. I hear people. Talking, I mean, inside."  
  
"Coffee, Simone?" Mrs. Bennett offered.  
  
"No, thanks, Mrs. Bennett," Simone answered.  
  
"Listen to me!" Kay shouted.  
  
Everyone did.  
  
"I think I'm going crazy," Kay said again. "I think I'm going out of my mind. Could we get some help or something?"  
  
"Like what?" her mother asked. "You've mentioned this before, but you never say what you want to do about it."  
  
Simone was startled. This was the first time she'd ever heard Kay say anything about this.  
  
"Besides," Mrs. Bennett went on, "I think it's very rude of you to discuss this sort of thing when we have guests."  
  
"Oh," Simone smiled sheepishly," don't mind me. Really."  
  
"Since you don't pay any attention to me when we're alone," Kay protested, "I thought you might with other people around."  
  
"All right, all right," Mrs. Bennett sighed. "What is it you think you need?"  
  
"Well," said Kay, calmer, quiet but not hopeful, "maybe a psychiatrist or someone. I mean," she added quickly, "it wouldn't have to be an expensive one. Just someone who would understand and know what to do."  
  
"You've seen too many movies," Mr. Bennett said.  
  
"Who else has a psychiatrist, Kay, in your class?" her mother wanted to know.  
  
"How should I know?" Kay said, clenching her teeth, trying to smile politely. "I don't imagine it's the kind of thing people talk much about."  
  
"I think it's exactly the kind of thing people _do_ talk about, dear," said her mother, ringing a little silver dinner bell for the maid and smiling knowledgeably.  
  
"Daddy, please," Kay said, straining. "Please, could you talk to someone, or get a doctor? Or maybe just do anything?"  
  
"All right, honey. As soon as I get back from Minneapolis," he said pleasently and got up from the table.  
  
Simone said that Kay just sat and stared at her father as he walked away. She started to turn toward her mother to say something but changed her mind. Simone thought it might have been tears that stopped her.  
  
And then Simone was Kay's head begin to shake, ever so slightly. Not shake, exactly: quiver, up and down, from the chin. It was like palsy, Simone said.  
  
After a moment, Kay too stood up and excused herself. Then she ran upstairs.  
  
In her room, Kay threw herself onto her bed and pulled up into a pony-position, on all fours, her sobs beginning to motion. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, she began to rock back and forth, rhythmically smashing her head into the headboard.  
  
Simone stood in the hallway, listening through the door, before she eased it open.  
_


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
A few things you need to know before reading this:  
Miguel and Theresa aren't brother and sister  
Simone is older than Theresa  
Simone and Theresa are friends  
Theresa's father is still alive  
Kay and Charity aren't cousins  
  
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily'scharacters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.  
  
My name is Theresa Fitzgerald, and I count less than almost anyone else in this story.  
  
What that means is that I'm not overconfident about things. It's nothing like a huge complex or anything; a lot of books say it's common in people my age, which is fifteen.  
  
I'm not what you would call ravishingly beautiful, except for my teeth. These, as my father will be the first to tell you, are three thousand dollars' perfect.  
  
I'm about average height (five-four), and I have dark, straight hair that falls to my shoulder blades without the slightest natural curl. My eyes are big, brown and near sighted, and when I absolutely have to I wear glasses.  
  
Years ago my eye doctor told me that big, beautiful eyes are almost always near sighted. It's kind of well-meant statement that just rolls around and rankles like crazy when you're in front of a mirror looking into a horn rimmed face.  
  
The only thing that's even vaguely interesting about me is my ambition. I do not want to be anything special--just what I think I'd be good at: being married. Maybe with a couple of kids and a really hot-looking husband, living on a beach in California, reading about other _special_ people who wanted to be something more and were.  
  
Right now, what I am is plain, single, and alive on Long Island (if you can stand it). But I am sort of simple, which, when you find out more about some of the other people involved with Kay Bennett, and about Kay herself, is probably a very good thing.  
  
To begin with, there's Simone Russell, who used to _live_ in California! There are a few important things to know about Simone fast: she's very, very smart (she'd like to be the first woman President); her father's a minister, which has been madly helpful to us because he has a thousand and one books about everything you can imagine; and she's not like meat all.  
  
She doesn't wear glasses; she looks like Naomi Campbell; she has a great laugh and eyes that make you smile back without thinking. And she's fantastically popular with boys.  
  
Sometimes I stand near her just to see how many of which of them will come up to talk. It's basking in her reflection, but it makes me feel a little prettier so it can't be all bad. Besides, psychologically, as long as I know the reasons for doing what I do, whatever I do is okay (that's a rough translation of something in one of Simone's father's books).  
  
In spite of the fact that I'm younger than Simone (I got a quicker start in nursery school, so I wound up a little ahead of myself), she and I are friends. That means more than just living within a couple of blocks of each other. Like we talk on the phone a lot, go shopping together, and spend the night at each other's house every once in a while.  
  
It's on those nights that I get my lessons; Simone thinks I need help in the boy department. I mean, if you examine my diary for the past year, you won't find it exactly bulging with gushy thoughts.  
  
So Simone spends a lot of time smartening me up. She arranges my hair and my wardrobe, and insists on hiding my glasses (with contacts). _She_ thinks I depend on them too much. _I_ think I'm climbing the stairs standing still without them.  
  
Naturally, we talk about everything in the world, from civil rights (which are Simone's big thing) to sex (which would be mine if I knew anything about firsthand). And movie stars and hippies, and free love, pot, potato pancakes and, Ricky Martin; *NSYNC, censorship, Destiny's Child. Strobe lights and see-throughs, Ethel and her kids, Freddie Prinz, Jr., Mariah Carey, the Iron Butterfly, and Freddie Prinz, Jr. Riots, Greenwich Village, suicide, San Francisco, diet Jell-O, and Miguel Lopez.  
  
_He_, if you want to know, is the cutest boy in our class. I mean it. He is absolutely gorgeous! The thing is, of course, he knows it. Still, damn he's fine!!! Simone likes to take him apart psychologically, examining every thing he does for hidden motives and meanings. I just like to look at him.  
  
Of course, he didn't belong to either one of us, then. He was Kay's. At least, he was for a while before she went away.  
  
If Simone is the All-American Girl, and I nail down the All-American Schlep spot, the role of Princess belongs to Charity Standish.  
  
Charity is something else. For one thing, she has piles of loot. For another, she hardly seemed as though she were _in_ our school at all.  It was more like she was just visiting each day.  
  
   Which sounds dumb, I know.  The reason for it is that Charity is like Drew Barrymore used to be: regal, cool, far off, blonde and slim, and with clothes you wouldn't believe.  And intelligent.  
  
  Simone is smart and studies. Charity is intelligent.  She never raises her hand in class, but if a teacher calls on her, she has the right answer as though it were something everyone automatically knew.  
  
  Furthermore, if you're suddenly missing a boy, look for Charity, the flame among the moths.  
  
   To be fair, though, the thing about her and boys was that she moved here maybe a year and a half ago.  So, of course, being a new girl and all, and being beautiful and loaded, you had to forgive a lot and understand instead.  
  
   What Charity Standish had I hadn't (besides wealth, beauty, brains and such) was confidence.  By the ton.  She never explained anything, and never made excuses.  If she, C. Standish, did something, then of course it must have been right.  At first, you thought she was unbelievably conceited.  Later on, you didn't.  
  
   So there we all are, the three of us, with a sneaky look at Miguel Lopez (who just happens to look like a Latin Freddie Prinz, Jr., which certainly doesn't do any harm).  What you don't have yet is a very complex, very simple—clever as can be but scary as hell—sometimes cheerful and often so depressed you wanted to lock her up until the mood passed—the girl named Kay Bennett.  
  
   Kay was crazy.  
  
   But not like "crazy, man!"  I mean out of her skull.  Sick, psychologically.  Insane.  
  
   We noticed something a few months ago. When she noticed it no one knew, but it was long before she tried to kill Charity and, after that, herself.  
  
  



	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily's characters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.  
  
We have a new high school in our town. It was exciting leaving our old dirty brick wreck with its broken windows, torn screens, no air-conditioning, broken hall lockers, and tuna fish sandwiches every Friday. Then we got to the new place.  
  
_It_ has green blackboards, indirect lighting, air-conditioning, a new gym, clean halls with lockers that really lock, an enormous cafeteria--and tuna fish sandwiches every Friday. I guess it doesn't matter how you wrap some packages.  
  
School was where all of us met. It's where Kay and Miguel fell madly in love. It was perfect. Kay was the kind of girl who couldn't have been called beautiful, really; everything just seemed to fit. She was alert and had a mean sense of humor, and she seemed more grown up than the rest of us. She had an air which said she'd seen more of the world than we had. She had great style, a marvelous but not too full figure, and fantastic legs--the kind of girl who is usually secretary of the student of council, not because everyone who knows her likes her, but because it seems the office is hers by right.  
  
This was great in the tenth grade, and even better in the eleventh, when Miguel Lopez got to be president of the council. This _was_ unusual, because ordinarily the office goes to a senior. I think everyone just went wild over the idea of Miguel and Kay together that way. It happens, sometimes.  
  
I really didn't know Kay too well then (I still don't, honestly). She was Simone's friend, not mine. I wasn't dating or anything like that, and in our school people run pretty much in groups. I mean, if Miguel and Kay wanted to do something, they would do it with other couples, not with people like me. Simone, at the time, had a thing going with a senior almost as hot as Miguel himself. This one was a blond tennis player--the kind who goes to Yale or Princeton and winds up on Wall Street, joining lots of clubs. Anyway, that was how Simone spent some much time with Kay and Miguel, and how I got to hear about everything they did.  
  
Of course, there were a lot of things Simone told me about I didn't pay much attention to. When one person always seems to be doing marvelous, cool things, and all you get to do is hear about them, you can get a little depressed. So you learn to listen, or seem to be listening, and to figure out when and how to nod at the right time, when to ask questions, when not to, and finally when to say you agree. This is called the art of conversation.  
  
Or selective inattention, as my father says. Choosing what you want to hear and concentrating only on that. It was about six months ago that I began listening to Simone when she talked about Kay. Even being told about Kay by a third person gave you the feeling she was undependable sometimes, a little strange.  
  
The first thing I remember hearing was Simone's story about the night Kay and Miguel celebrated their first anniversary. A group of kids had gotten together for dinner and a movie, and then gone back to Simone's house. Kay and Miguel got funny presents, and there was dancing in Mr. Russell's study. In the middle of dancing, Kay suddenly turned odd.  
  
"Stop it!" she shouted, startling everyone. "Just stop it!" Then she turned and ran out of the room.  
  
Simone and Miguel followed, neither knowing what they were supposed to stop. Miguel help Simone back and went to Kay in the living room. Simone, of course, stayed within earshot.  
  
"What is it, honey?" Miguel asked Kay, putting his arm around her shoulders. Kay stared at him without speaking. "What's the matter, Kay?" Miguel asked again. "What's wrong?"  
  
After a minute, Kay answered in a bitter voice. "You're no better than the rest of them," she said, cutting her words off so that she sounded almost English. "Why can't you all stop it, and leave me be?"  
  
"But what have we done?" Miguel asked.  
  
"Oh, really," Kay sighed as though she were suddenly very tired. "Why can't people stare at something else for a change?"  
  
Miguel said nothing.  
  
"Really, Miguel," Kay went on. "Your friends are about the rudest people I've ever known. I should just like to be left alone. if you don't mind."  
  
Simone walked into the living room then, and saw Kay shake Miguel's hand off her shoulder and turn away sharply, heading for an easy chair in a dark corner of the room. Miguel watched her go, letting her settle into the chair. Then Simone took Miguel and led him back to the study, explaining that maybe it was "that time" or something and that Kay was probably just a little depressed.  
  
Which may have seemed true, for about ten minutes later Kay was back with the crowd, dancing and laughing and her usual self. And that was that. I thought it sounded pretty weird, but I guess everyone (except Simone) went back to normal, too, saying nothing more about it.  
  
Simone remembered her dinner at the Bennett's. She began to think that what she had thought was a great put-on might be real after all. She began to talk about it, to me.  
  
Which was fine, and it interested me like crazy but it wasn't the best thing to do. For we both should have talked about it--to other people. We shouldn't have been so cautious and polite. We could have tried to do something for Kay even then.  
  
Hindsight, that's called.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly John Neufield's dialogue and James E. Reily's characters, I'm just put the two together for everyone's enjoyment.  
  
Kay next began to stay home. She wouldn't got out with Miguel if other people were going to be around. Even in school you got the feeling that she wished we would all disappear.  
  
This was miserably hard on Miguel. He and Kay were _the_ couple in school: bright, popular, organized. They did things. He was captain of the hockey team. She was always at his side when he wanted her, helping and cheering or just standing there smiling with her arm through his. Before. Now, Miguel found himself alone too much of the time.  
  
He talked to Simone about it, but she couldn't really do anything. Since Kay hadn't mentioned illness to her again, Simone decided she couldn't mention it to Miguel. And although Simone tried once or twice to get her to speak of her fears, Kay said nothing. She still saw a few people in her room at home, but with the shades drawn and one tiny light on only. When she was in school, we began being able to tell when Kay was having a black day, as we began to call them, and when she was having a fairly good bright day.  
  
For she jumped from side to side for a while. Sometimes she would be her old self: confident, clever, open with everyone. Other times, she would withdraw, speak in a whisper, avoid meeting people in the hall or at lunch.  
  
It got to the point where by her clothes you could tell her frame of mind. On good days, she was beautiful. She carried herself well and moved like an older woman who knew what moving one particular way could do to someone watching. On bad days, she wore dark clothing that only pointed out how pale she was, stopped over, with her shoulders hunched in toward her chest and her head down.  
  
And all the time, Miguel was going out of _his_ mind, naturally. He couldn't figure out what, if anything, he had done. What any of us had done, or what we were supposed to have been doing, which seemed more likely. Kay decided she didn't even like going to hockey games with him. Then, when she would go, Miguel was so nervous he played terribly. He never knew when she would decide to disappear, which she began doing a lot, or to suddenly arrive when he wasn't expecting her. He couldn't accept invitations to parties because he never knew whether Kay would go with him and he didn't want to go alone, and he was afraid to find out what she would say if he did. It go so bad he once made a sort of pass at Simone.  
  
"It's absolutely true!" Simone said. "He was just standing there, pawing the ground like an indecisive horse, and he asked me, just like that."  
  
"Well," I said, "what did you say? Just tell me, for heaven's sake."  
  
"I said no, of course. 'Oh Miguel,' I said, 'Kay is one of my best friends. I couldn't even think of going out with you. I'd die if she ever found out. Besides, her friendship means a lot to me.' "  
  
"What did he say?"  
  
"He said he knew I'd say that, but he couldn't think of anyone else to ask Kay might not hate automatically."  
  
"That's a point."  
  
"Still and all," said Simone.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, it seems to me that if he really lover Kay, he would stand by. He could wait. It's not as though this can go on forever, is it?"  
  
"If you're asking me," I said, "you've got the wrong person. I'm not even sure Kay knows what's going on. Though I'm just guessing, of course."  
  
"Yes, you are," Simone reminded me. I didn't need reminding.  
  
I felt very sorry for Miguel. Especially so a few weeks later. Simone told me he had broken up with Kay. I suppose I should have felt sorry for her. After all, Miguel Lopez _is_ the hottest guy in our class, and to lose him would kill any girl. But I felt worse for him than for Kay.  
  
I knew he hadn't wanted to stop seeing her. I guess maybe he felt he couldn't go on without having his own black days, and maybe even the same kind of trouble, whatever it was. It was something he knew he had to do, instinctively, even though it must have hurt very badly.  
  
None of this touched Kay. She came to school on good days and gad, and behaved accordingly. On good days she was cheerful and funny and would talk to Simone about Miguel as just a step in growing up, something that after all no one could have expect to have lasted forever, and from which she had learned a great, great deal. On bad days, she said nothing to anyone, answering questions in class only with great effort and then almost inaudibly.  
  
About this time I noticed something that Simone hadn't. On her bad days, after she and Miguel split, Kay would walk from class to class with Charity Standish. Not with her, exactly, but at her side. She never spoke to Charity, and Charity hardly ever spoke to her. They just walked through the halls together, Charity saying "hi" to people she knew and Kay hiding behind her, saying nothing. As a matter of fact, it occurred to me that Charity hardly even _looked_ at Kay as they walked. And if she spoke to her at all, Charity did it out of the side of her mouth, as though the words were being slipped out secretly in case anyone were listening. It was sort of weird.  
  
And then, one day, we got down to the nitty-gritty.  
  
It was one of Kay's good days. She had been happy all morning, and nearly brilliant in English class, using words even Simone hadn't yet discovered. Her face, which is hard to picture because it can change so fast, was lit up, and her cheeks were flushed so that she looked like an Ivory Soap baby at sixteen--simple, clean, and unbelievably beautiful.  
  
After English class, we all went to social sciences, which I might say, is perhaps the major waste of our time each day. It was a day on which we were supposed to have (and did have) a test, so I rushed on alone to take a few last-minute looks at my notes.  
  
After five minutes or so, everyone was in class and ready to begin except Kay and Simone. Our teacher passed out blue books and then fiddled around a minute, waiting for the two of them to show up. They didn't. So she passed out the test, face down, and held us up a minute more, still hoping to see Bennett and Russell arrive.  
  
"Theresa," she finally said, "you're near the door. Will you walk back and see what, if anything, is holding up those two girls?"  
  
I stood up, frantically trying to find a way to garb my notes to cram with in the hall. No go.  
  
It was natural to go back to where we'd been the hour before. I knew Mr. Milnes had a break and wouldn't be around. So it stood to reason that Simone and Kay might still be in his room, fooling around and probably exchanging _their_ notes at the last minute.  
  
I opened Mr. Milne's door and looked in. I saw Simone right away at Mr. Milne's desk, and I started to laugh. Simone looked up at me, and I knew instantly I shouldn't.  
  
Simone had been bent over as I came in, with her head sort of under the desk altogether, doing something I couldn't see. When she heard me, she looked up terrified, and motioned me to be quiet. I was. Then I moved forward a little.  
  
"Stop!" Simone whispered hard. "Just don't come any closer!"  
  
"What's going on?" I asked.  
  
"Never mind," Simone hissed. "Just get out of here and get the nurse, fast!"  
  
"But what--"  
  
"Will you please just do what I tell you!" Simone nearly screamed.  
  
Being curious and a little stubborn, I wasn't going to go until I knew what was happening. I walked on my tiptoes to Mr. Milne's desk and looked under it.  
  
There was Kay, on her hands and knees, doubled over, busily poking a pin into her wrist--neatly, rhythically, precisely, watching tiny drops of blood peep out each hole she punched. And Simone, bent down, not saying a word, kept handing her fesh pieces of tissue that Kay took wuth a sort of smile to dab at the blood. She would put the tissue to the wound for a second, throw it behind her, and jab again with the pin. She didn't flinch. She didn't even say "ouch!" or anything. Just huddled there, busy stabbing and staunching, stabbing and staunching, and Simone powerless to do anything but watch and play her own awful part in the horrible thing.  
  
I turned away and ran for the door.


End file.
